From: mike wilson
> P. J. Alling wrote:
>>> > Oppenheimer. The atomic bomb kept the peace for 50+ years, at least
>> > there were no "major" shooting wars for 50 years because no one wanted
>> > to risk a conventional war getting out of hand. Probably the first time
>> > that a weapon was actually too terrible to use.
>> Wow. Whilst I can understand that you may not consider the recent stuff
> in the Middle East major because not so many Americans have been
> affected, how you can say that Vietnam was anything other than major for
> the USA (especially considering the psychological effect of "losing"
> after all those deaths) and at least three other countries, I do not know
World War One caused something like 16 MILLION deaths in four years.
The second world war produced somewhere between 62 - 78 MILLION deaths
worldwide in six years, including between 1 and 1.5 million civilian
deaths in what was then French Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia).
In the first Indochina war -
500,000 Viet Minh KIA; 89,797 French KIA/MIA
In the second Indochina war, aka the Vietnam War -
1.5 million Vietnamese KIA (both sides);
60,000 US KIA/MIA; 524 Anzac KIA; 4,407 ROC KIA; 351 Thai KIA;
30,000 Meo/Hmong people KIA
It was a major conflict for those involved, but on a worldwide scale, it
was limited compared to the two world wars that preceded it, plus being
confined, for the most part, within the boundaries of a "single" country.
It's a reasonable argument that fear of escalation to a nuclear
confrontation was one reason it did not become a larger conflict.